Our exploration of the capital began in the Fort District, so called because it was the site of the fortress from the Dutch period which in other coastal towns of the island is still preserved. (Galle, where we will go later, is a good example.) The buildings in the Fort District date from the British colonial period (19th c. and first half of 20th c.). They mostly serve official or business purposes.

Still extant from the Dutch period is the so-called Dutch Hospital, another structure typical of the settlements of the Dutch colonists and which consists of a courtyard surrounded by porticoes (the small image shows it as it looked in 1771). Some years ago it was restored with a view to attracting tourists, with little shops and cafés.

Above: a map of the Colombo Fort by J.L.K. van Dort (Colombo 1831 – Bambalapitiya 1898). I cannot read the year in the bottom right corner, but apparently it is 1888: Dort must have copied an older document (but his labelling is in English). As the photograph shows, the demolition of the ramparts and the filling-in of the moats was already under way in the 1860s.

One understands that the fort must have seemed out of place in the midst of the developing modern city, yet one still wishes that a way had been found to preserve it. At the time presumably no one imagined that it might once be interesting for tourists. Below: the area of the fort today.

Auch einen Uhrturm wie den im Hintergrund findet man in Städten der Insel häufig. In Colombo gibt es ihn mehrfach.Clock towers are another thing that is typical of the towns in the island. In Colombo there are several.

„Felled through might, restored through right“ reads the Dutch rhyme of the inscription. Does this building really date from the Dutch period, i.e. from before 1800? It does not look as if it did, but I wouldn’t totally exclude it either. Perhaps the inscription was reused, or Dutch was still used even in the 19th century — after all, the Dutch-speaking population presumably did not vanish overnight, or start speaking English from one day to the next.

Die Proportionen des Gebäudes der State Bank of India stimmen irgendwie so gar nicht zur umgebenden Bebauung.The dimensions of the building of the State Bank of India somehow don’t blend harmoniously with the neighbourhood.

Cargill’s, founded in 1844, was THE trading company of the island in the latter part of the British colonial period. This is the headquarters, opened in 1906. At that time it also housed a department store (the L-shaped building is larger than the photograph suggests, since the other wing is much longer). The company continues to exist and, it seems, to flourish. Among other things it operates a supermarket chain.

This building has also just been restored. I read that the workers scraped off 20 layers of paint before reaching the red and cream-coloured bricks. What I cannot find out is what the building was, or is, for. And where does the stone with the date 1687 and the emblem of the VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie = United East India Company) come from? On the right in the same style the date 1900 and the monogramm DMC, whose meaning I have not discovered.

In Europe the name „Ceylon“ has a dubious ring to it and it is felt to be more politically correct to use the official name „Sri Lanka“ adopted in 1972. But this new name must be seen in the context of the politics of that time — the increasing discrimination of the Tamil minority and the self-promotion of the buddhist Singhalese majority, which ultimately led to the bloody civil war only so recently ended. „Sri“ means „august“ — you may know the word as a honorific for Indian gurus; „Lanka“ was the name of the main buddhist kingdom in the island, which derived its legitimacy from the role of the king as guardian of the tooth relic (one of Buddha’s canines). As can be seen here in the island itself the name „Ceylon“ is still current — even in official or semi-official usage. The „Bank of Ceylon“ is one the high street banks in the island.

As you can read here the church originally formed part of the residence of the Dutch governor. Apparently it served as a reception hall and was recycled as a church in 1804, after the British takeover.

Die Bogenstellung rechts geht wohl auf den Umbau zur Kirche durch die Briten zurück.The arcade on the right seems to be the result of alterations by the British in the context of turning the room into a church.

(Der Punkt nach „occidit“ ist tatsächlich einer, soweit sich das nach dem Foto beurteilen läßt, gehört aber dort offensichtlich nicht hin, die Wortfolge „Quam carus…testetur“ bildet einen durchgehenden Satz.)(The period after „occidit“ really is a period, as far as can be judged from the photograph, even though it should not be one. Clearly the words „Quam carus…testetur“ are part of a single sentence.)

Sacred to the MemoryofLIEUTENANT John Gore, R[oyal] N[avy]only Son of Vice-Admiral Sir John Gore, KCBwho, during the voyage home of his Father’s Flag-Ship „the Melville“ from this station, perished heroicallyin an unsuccessful attempt to save the life of a Brother Sailor, off Algoa-Bay, on the 30th April 1835.Aged 23 Years.…This Tablet was placed hereby his FriendThe Right Hon: Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, Bart: C.C.H. Governor of Ceylon.October MDCCCXXXVII.

Östlich schließt sich an den Fort District das Marktviertel Pettah an. Hier geht es weitaus „orientalischer“ und drängeliger zu.The market district of Pettah borders on the Fort District in the east. This is much more crowded and looks a lot more „oriental“.

Another drastic change of scenery: the new Colombo town hall erected in the mid-1920s. It faces what was then called Victoria Park, now renamed Viharamahadevi Park, after a long-dead native queen (yes, rather longer than Queen Victoria).

Dawn on the Beira Lake. The pagoda-like roof at the centre is part of the Supreme Court, built in the 1980s with help from China. To the left of it the spire of All Saints Church in Hulftsdorp, where we will go shortly.

Outside the hotel. All official signage on the island is in both Sinhala and Tamil (the scripts look somewhat alike but are really quite different from each other) as well as, mostly, in English too, even though unlike India English is not an official language in Sri Lanka.

Above: De Soysa Roundabout with the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church, with the Dewatagaha Jumma Mosque in the background. We already saw the name de Soysa on the building of the Buddhist Young Men’s Association, above. Portuguese names are surprisingly frequent in the island. The Portuguese (1505-1656), the Dutch (until 1796) and then the British (until 1948) each spent about a century-and-a-half in the island. There are few visible remains from the Portuguese era, as the one most distant in time — a few fortifications, indistinguishable from those built by the Dutch; nothing more. But culturally the Portuguese may have had a deeper impact than the Dutch and perhaps even the British. This is shown both by the prevalence of Portuguese family names and by the circumstance that while 7.6 per cent of the population are christians (according to the 2012 census) 6.1 percent (about 1.24 million people) are catholics; in other words, the vast majority among the christians. The protestants only number some 273,000 persons, and they are divided into numerous separate churches. There are only about 50,000 Anglicans; yet at least churches originating in Britain constitute a majority among the protestants. The methodists in particular founded many schools in the island and today still have some 40,000 members; there are also baptists, or the Salvation Army. By contrast Dutch missionising seems to have had little success — even though in the 18th century native preachers (both Singhalese and Tamil) were indeed recruited, at least here and there. The Dutch Reformed Church still owns historic churches in places like Colombo or Galle, but it has only about 5,000 members. As the name shows, it has long become English-speaking. Very recently (in 2008) even the word „Dutch“ was eliminated: the official name is now „Christian Reformed Church in Sri Lanka“.

…Borella General Cemetery. 1840 eröffnet, steht dieser Friedhof allen Religionen offen, die aber jeweils ihren eigenen Bereich haben.…Borella General Cemetery. Opened in 1840, the cemetery is open to all religions, but they each have their separate area.

The Bauddhaloka Mawatha is an important thoroughfare leading southwest from the Borella Cemetery towards the ocean. It is the address for many government agencies, embassies, association headquarters and the like. Also for the weather office (above). Or the Anglican cathedral (below).

The Anglican dioceses of Colombo was established in 1845; its original church was Christ Church in the northern suburb of Mutwal, a pretty neogothic structure erected in 1852 and the size of a large parish church. In the 1960s it was decided to build a new cathedral in Bauddhaloka Mawatha. The first stone was laid in 1968 by bishop Harold de Soysa (hm…), the first native bishop of Colombo.

T.N. Wynne-Jones also designed this building, erected in 1948 expressly for the ceremony marking the island’s transition from British rule to independence. It is modeled on the audience hall of the royal palace in Kandy. The (wooden) original is shown on my Kandy page. Wynne-Jones made his own version rather more grandiose.

It seems that the choice of building materials was dictated by considerations of economy. This lion is now permanently agape. What looks like stone is really reinforced cement. Just as well temperatures never drop below zero here; but the iron reinforcements can still rust and thereby expand (as does water seeping into cracks when it freezes).

The large white building (in the background above and in the photographs below) is situated between the Independence Hall and Bauddhaloka M. From the look of it it must have been something institutional, but has recently been converted into a posh shopping mall. (The complex is gigantic, the photographs do not show its full extent. When we were there some wings or ancillary buildings still had construction work for the conversion going on.)

Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, auch an der Bauddhaloka M. Ein Geschenk der Volksrepublik China, errichtet 1970-73.Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, also in Bauddhaloka M. A gift from the People’s Republic of China, built in 1970-73.

Even though people stand or sit on the tracks as if they never expected a train to come along the line is actually quite busy. Somewhat worryingly the rails look as if they were inclined to break today rather than tomorrow.

Formerly this was a neighbourhood of elegant mansions, now almost all replaced by commercial buildings. One of those mansions is inhabited by characters of Shyam Selvadurai’s novel „Cinnamon Gardens“, which tells the story of members of a clan belonging to the native élite of the island in the 1920s. I brought this as holiday reading and it is one of the best books I have read in years.

We are in Hulftsdorp, a part of the city situated on a hill with a view of the distant harbour and Beira Lake (a view which however you have to be lucky to catch between the buildings). As the name suggests this was a Dutch settlement. Presumably it was more pleasant to live up here than in the swampy lowlands? The place is named after Gerard Hulft, a military commander of the Dutch East India Company (above, in a portrait by Govert Flink; „dorp“ means „village“). He was killed in the ultimately successful siege of Colombo, then held by the Portuguese, in 1656. However, the church above is anglican, as its appearance already makes clear: All Saints Church, opened in 1865.

Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. Plaque near the west door of All Saints Church to commemorate its consecration on All Saints Day 1865. The project is stated to have been initiated by one Canon Dias and one Reverend Perera. Good Portuguese names — but how come they were Anglican?

Remarkably the name Dutch Reformed Church is spelled in larger letters than the current name Christian Reformed Church, which is even put in parentheses. As if someone here were unhappy about the change of name in 2008. (And the use of the word „presently“ in the sense, presumably, of „currently“ is of course wrong — but so is much of the English seen or heard in the island.) The church building supposedly holds 1,000 people and was completed in 1757. But some of the tombstones placed against the outer walls and even some of those inside are older. They come from the church in the fort. That church was demolished by the British in 1813, but not without first transferring the burials here.

On 4 September 1813 at eight in the evening a funeral procession accompanied by torch bearers sets out from the fort in the direction of the Wolvendaal Church. First comes a cavalry detachment, the hooves of the horses wrapped in cloth to avoid noise, followed by a military band playing slow tunes and a guard of honour of foot soldiers. Then five coffins, also carried by foot soldiers. This part of the procession is flanked on both sides by remaining senior members of the Dutch community. Behind them walk clergymen, then more Dutch dignitaries, and native dignitaries (mudaliyars) with their guard of native soldiers (laskorijnen in Dutch, lascoreens or lascarins in English). Next, the officers of the British garrison, followed by the civilian representatives of the British crown, and finally, in carriages, the members of the council and the governor and his staff. The governor no doubt in uniform; with him, wearing their wigs and scarlet robes, are the supreme judge and his deputy (the puisne judge — none other than William Coke, whom we have met). This part of the procession is also flanked by Lascoreens. At the end of the procession, more foot soldiers. It must have taken a long time for all these dignitaries to take the places assigned to them in the Wolvendaal Church. Maybe the organ was playing — there certainly was one. After the funeral service the five coffins were lowered into their new vaults. A little later the remaining coffins and the tombstones were likewise transferred, without any special ceremony. Only then was the church in the fort, clearly a rather modest and by then dilapidated building, pulled down. (This description follows the one in Carl Muller, Colombo, Penguin Books 1996. Presumably the more important dead at least were buried in soldered metal coffins after the European fashion of the period. Muller says nothing about why five coffins were singled out for special treatment, or who was in them.)

Wife of the „chief surgeon of the fort of Colombo“ Jan Jacob Brunek. It is noticeable on this tombstone as on others in the church that women are identified by their birth name. It does not seem to have been customary to adopt the husband’s name.

(Dessave: hoher Amtstitel auf Ceylon, ursprünglich für Gouverneure des Maharadschas [von Maharadschas auf C. habe ich allerdings noch nie gehört — sind die Könige gemeint?], von der [Vereinigten Ostindischen] Kompanie später für europäische Vorsteher eines Bezirks oder Dessavonei übernommen. Singalesisch disava.)(Dessave: high official title in Ceylon, originally for governors of the maharadja [I have never heard of maharadjas in Ceylon — do they mean the kings?], later adopted by the [United East India] Company for the European heads of a district or dessavonei. Disava in Sinhala.)

„Oberkaufmann“ klingt gar nicht nach einem besonders großartigen Amt. Es muß aber wohl doch etwas wert gewesen sein, wenn Herr de Cock den Titel Dessave führte und eine Baronesse zur Frau hatte!„Chief Merchant“ somehow does not sound very grand. But it must have been an important charge, if Mijnheer de Cock was both a dessave and married to a baroness!

„Under-Merchant and discharged to the Netherlands as a former First Master of the Packing House at Galle“ — if I’m getting this right? And then he came back? Since the inscription says that he was „here laid to rest“. Or did he never leave? That would seem to suggest that service in the island was considered a burden and that once you were discharged the expectation was that you would return home in a hurry. Maybe Gerhard was actually born here and the baroness was his mother?

„Opsiender“ must mean something like „supervisor“ (the word is no longer in use and dictionaries do not have it, not even spelled with a „z“ instead of the „s“ in line with today’s Dutch orthography); but what on earth is „arreek“? The internet yields texts from Dutch colonial history in which this word appears, indeed it tends to do so in combination with „opsiender“ or „opziender“, but I cannot find an explanation of what it actually is. The texts in question imply trade and something of monetary value. At first I thought of some kind of customs duty, then I thought of „arrak“, brandy made from the sap of the inflorescences of coconut trees; this is produced in Ceylon and Indonesia and the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie made a lot of money from it. But even in older sources arrak is spelled arrak. However, palm trees are probably indeed involved: I think that we are talking about the fruit of the areca palm (Areca catechu), i.e. areca nuts or betel nuts, which were clearly also commercially important for the VOC. No doubt Elias was related to Sara Maria Raket, probably her elder brother.

Wife of the Ordinary Councillor of the Dutch Indies and Governor of CeylonWillem Iakob van de Graaff. She is commemorated both by this tombstone and by a wooden monument on the wall of the church, where she appears as „Christiane Elisabeth“:

That Anna Henrietta van Beaumont was born in Cape Town I learned from the biography of her husband by A.J.P. Raat: Joan Gideon Loten (1710-1789). A personal history of a Dutch virtuoso (Hilversum 2010, originally a doctoralthesissubmitted to Leiden university). Loten clearly left a wealth of records and notes, including about the death of his wife. In the night preceding 23 May 1755 a devastating hurricane hits Colombo. Apparently as a result Anna Henrietta develops a malum hystericum (a nervous condition). The wind rattling the windows and the circumstance that for several days the roof leaks despite all efforts and allows the violent monsoon rains to penetrate into the house cause her great discomfort. Afterwards she never recovers fully. On 10 August Loten dreams that his wife has died. Still crying he wakes and is relieved to find her lying beside him and asking him if he is all right. He asks her the same question and she answers to his surprise that she is feeling weak and depressed, but that she is sure it will pass. (She addresses him as „Loten“.) But in the course of the day she deteriorates rapidly. In the evening the doctor tells here somberly and without delicacy that she will die; she accepts that seemingly with the greatest serenity. Her husband offers to call a clergyman but she refuses. Again and again she takes his hand, caresses it with a friendly smile or even embraces him, „not passionately but as in jest“. Her daughter has now come too and helps her to drink some beer, holding the glass to her mouth since she is too weak to do it herself. Her face expressionless the dying woman keeps mumbling the same, barely intelligible words; Joan Gideon thinks it might be „I am the bride, I shall be married…“ Her mouth remains open, the tongue protrudes weakly, Joan Gideon wipes the spittle off her chin. But she closes her mouth again before she also closes her eyes and dies. According to Joan Gideon her face was calm and beautiful and remained so until the coffin was shut on 12 August. Anna Henrietta is buried in the church in the fort. Her death hits the governor hard, as he seems to have been deeply attached to her; moreover only 10 days earlier his grandson, „Little Charles“ (Careltje), had also died, not even two years old. A year later his daughter, seven months pregnant, dies in Batavia (Djakarta).

Loten returns to Europe in 1757. Financially independent, he spends most of his remaining life in London where he enjoys a reputation as a naturalist. He is buried in St James‘ Church in Utrecht. The verb „verwachten“ „await“ is in the plural, as if in the lower part of the inscription, which stupidly I did not photograph, another person were mentioned. This cannot be Joan Gideon, but „Littel Charles“ the grandson was also buried in the fort and reinterred in 1813. What I find remarkable in the description of the death of Anna Henrietta is the lack of any religious dimension. The dying woman refuses spiritual assistance, there is no reference to praying at any point, God is never mentioned. Loten does wonder if the words „I am the bride“ suggest that Anna saw herself as some sort of bride of Christ, but is not convinced of that. Loten himself comes across as rather a free thinker.

Iman Willem Falck(Colombo 1736 – Colombo 1785), „Governor and Director of the Island of Ceylon and its dependencies“. „Iman“ really seems to have been his first name. The internet refers to this name almost exclusively as a given name for boys or, more frequently, girls in the islamic world (and, after all, Falck was born in the island). On the other hand the name did exist in Low German too,in very ancient times. In fact, though, Falck’s father was from Cologne.

Above: Governor Falck (with black tricorn on the chair to the left) receives a delegation of the king of Kandy, January 1772. Watercolour by Carel Frederik Reymer (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). The room (possibly the very one later turned into the Fort Church by the British) is large, but even this picture suggests a certain shabbiness. It is remarkable that in the 18th century you could become governor of Ceylon at a fairly young age (Falck was appointed in 1765 at the age of 31). The fact that a governor could be born in the island could likewise be seen as an indication that this office did not rank so very highly in the VOC hierarchy. Indeed Ceylon was answerable to the VOC office in Batavia (Djakarta). I have no idea what the „dependencies“ of the island mentioned in the gubernatorial title might have been (here: „Ceylon en resorte van dien“, and on the van Beaumont tombstone „Ceylon met dies onderhorigheden“). The title sounds all the more grandiloquent as not even the island itself was controlled by the VOC in its entirety, since the kingdom of Kandy in the interior remained independent. Nor could the VOC in Batavia be bothered to change this. When Falck’s successor Willem Jacob van de Graaff moved to annex Kandy, Batavia ordered him to desist and he resigned in protest. He was succeeded by Johan van Angelbeek, the last Dutch governor in Colombo. (Born in 1727 at Wittmund in northwestern Germany, van Angelbeek was de Graaff’s father-in-law.)

One of the few organs to be photographed in the island and the image is blurred. Clearly a British-made instrument from the latter part of the 19th century, by the look of it with two manuals. It rates frequent mentions of the web, but only from non-experts („over a hundred years old“ — no shit!); nobody has anything to say about the date, the builder, the specification. At least the instrument is repeatedly stated to be „in perfect condition“. Muller in his description of the transferral of the burials from the fort mentions in passing an organ loft in the Wolvendaal Church. Unlike in Galle there is no trace of this today, let alone of the organ itself. Given the height of the building it seems likely that it originally contained balconies with additional seating. What I do find on the web aresummaries of the minutes of the Reformed Consistory of Colombofrom the years 1735-97. According to this it was recommended on 13 August 1776 to appoint Christiaan Reikheer, hitherto the organist, as the (new? additional?) verger and one Mr. Toerks as organist. Nowhere else is an organist or an organ mentioned in these summaries, but still. Unfortunately it is not clear from the text which church we are talking about. The index to the summaries calls the two gentlemen organists of the Wolvendaal Church. But somewhat confusingly Reikheer is mentioned in 1783 as verger of the church in the fort (the only other time he appears in the summaries). Below: minutes of the Colombo consistory.

Diese ebenfalls an der Außenmauer der Kirche aufgestellten Grabsteine des 19. Jahrhunderts haben englische Inschriften.These tombstones, also placed against the outer wall of the church, date from the 19th century and have English inscriptions.